Iran never aimed to close the Strait of Hormuz, Dr. Andrew Latham argues. Tehran built something far more useful — permanent uncertainty. Mines, shore-based anti-ship missiles, fast attack craft, and cheap drones make every transit a calculation rather than a routine. Global oil inventories dropped 250 million barrels across March and April. The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve stood at roughly 384 million barrels in early May. The IEA projects Q2 drawdowns averaging 8.5 million barrels a day.
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After a suggestion that AI might be the “holy grail” of future special operations, the general in charge of the U.S. military’s most elite combat forces had another pre-modern metaphor for the technology.
“This extends all the way back from the first stone thrown from the first sling,” Navy Adm. Frank M. Bradley, the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, told an audience at SOF Week Tuesday in Tampa, Florida.
U.S. Undersecretary of War Elbridge Colby announced May 18 that the Pentagon was pausing its participation in the Permanent Joint Board on Defense, the 86-year-old advisory body that has coordinated North American continental defense since 1940. Washington cited Canada’s failure to meet NATO’s 5% GDP defense spending target and incomplete progress on its commitment to buy 88 F-35s. Ottawa has so far ordered only 16 and is reviewing the remaining purchase amid trade tensions.
Russia is heading toward a crippling shortage of working-age men to fill both military ranks and defense factory lines, according to Alexander Kolyandr of the Center for European Policy Analysis. The natural Russian population has declined every year since 1992, resulting in a cumulative decline of 16.8 million people. The workforce aged 25 to 29 fell by more than 720,000 in 2022 alone. Russia’s economically active population could shrink by as many as 23 million — roughly a quarter — by 2050. The late American demographer Dr. Murray Feshbach predicted the trajectory in 1983.
The U.S. Air Force has been spotted integrating hypersonic weapons onto the B-1B Lancer, with footage from Edwards Air Force Base released in late April showing Lockheed Martin’s AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon mounted externally beneath the bomber. The ARRW is a boost-glide weapon that flies at speeds exceeding Mach 5 and was previously only seen on the B-52H. The B-1B can carry up to 75,000 pounds of weapons and exceed Mach 1.2 — the fastest bomber in U.S. inventory. Boeing has discussed equipping the aircraft with up to six external LAM pylons.
After a drone attack injured dozens inside the Tower 22 outpost in Jordan, Army National Guard doctor Maj. Erika Page suddenly found herself in charge of a small team of doctors and medics treating dozens of injured soldiers. For hours, she and her team diagnosed traumatic brain injuries in the field and made calls on which troops would be evacuated for serious medical care and who could stay in the camp and help.
Three soldiers died in the attack, the most Americans killed in a single strike in the region prior to the start of the Iran War.
A crowd of more than 5,000 people arrived at Arlington National Cemetery on May 30, 1868, with a purpose.
They came to place flowers on the graves of soldiers who fought so valiantly on the first Decoration Day, which later became Memorial Day. Before the crowd paid their respects, James Garfield rose to speak.
Also Read: Widow’s powerful response to Army general goes viral on Memorial DayBefore serving as the 20th president of the United States, Garfield was a congressman from Ohio. He also served as a major general in the Union army.
New footage has shown the J-35 fifth generation fighter in a new configuration with externally mounted weaponry, namely with four PL-15 long range radar-guided air-to-air missiles under its wings. Combined with the six missiles the fighter can accommodate in its internal weapons bays, this provides considerable firepower for engagements with other aircraft. The J-35 was developed under a joint program between the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force and the Navy, with variants developed for both services confirmed to have entered service in 2025.
The Chengdu J-20 made its maiden flight on January 11, 2011, deliberately timed to coincide with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing that same morning. The flight was a diplomatic message. What the West did not know was how much of the aircraft had been stolen — from Lockheed Martin’s F-35 program, from Boeing’s F-22 files, from the wreckage of an F-117 shot down over Serbia, and from Russia’s canceled MiG 1.44. Sixteen years later, more than 300 J-20s are in PLAAF service, and 1,000 are projected by 2030.
Footage released by the Russian Defence Ministry has shown road-mobile cruise missile launchers from the Iskander-K system taking part in large-scale nuclear war exercises, which are being conducted jointly with Belarus. The Iskander-K has gained growing publicity for its role in the Russian Ukrainian War, and after entering service in the mid-2010s, it was enhanced in the early 2020s with the new 9M729 cruise missile providing a much extended 1,500-2,000 kilometre engagement range.